All the hull of the girls was a sobbin’, and one of ’em sithed out: “Oh, it does seem as if our hearts must break, right in to.”
Then I spoke up and says in tremblin’ tones: “If you are willin’ Delila Ann, it would be a melancholly satisfaction to me to see the corpse.”
THE HOUSE OF MOURNIN’.
The girls led the way a sobbin’ and sithin’, and I follered on kinder holdin’ up Delila Ann, expectin’ every minute she would faint away on my hands. We was a mournful lookin’ procession; they led the way into the next room, and led me up to a sofy, and there laid out on a gorgeous yeller cotton cushin, lay a dead pup; I was too dumbfoundered to speak for nearly half a moment.
Oh! what feelin’s I felt as I stood there a lookin’ on ’em, to think how I had been a sympathizin’ and a comfortin’, a pumpin’ the very depths of my soul to pour religious consolation onto ’em, and bewailin’ myself, a sheddin’ my own tears over a whiffet pup. As I thought this over, my dumbfounder begun to go off on me, and my mean begun to look different, and awfuler; I thrust my cotton handkerchief back into my pocket again with my right hand, and drew my left arm hautily from Delila Ann, not carin’ whether she crumpled down and fainted away or not; I s’pose my mean apauled ’em, for Delila Ann says to me in tremblin’ tones:
“All genteel wimmen dote on dogs.” And she added in still more tremblin’ tones, as she see my mean kep’ a growin’ awfuler, and awfuler every minute: “Nothin’ gives a woman such a genteel air as to lead ’em round with a ribbin.” And she says still a keepin’ her eye on my mean: “I always know a woman is genteel the minute I see her a leadin’ ’em round, and I never have been mistakin’ once; the more genteel a woman is, the more poodle dogs she has to dote on.”
I didn’t say a word to Delila Ann nor the hull set on ’em, but my emotions riz up so that I spoke right out loud, unbeknown to me; I episoded to myself in a deep voice:
GENTILITY.